Carving out spaces for collective learning and getting to grips with new to us ideas is a challenge in a culture of hectic urban living. Yet, in the midst of a very busy arts festival, quite a few of us chose to come along and hear the perspectives of the speakers contributing to this discussion on Land Rights.

Each speaker contributed a response to how our relationship to land is changing and has been changing as economic considerations seem to increasingly take priority over the social, cultural and environmental in a local and global scale. Having those different voices, spanning two continents, different generations and fields of interest, asking critical questions allowed us to learn not from facts but from the experiences of the speakers, and begin to look at our own connection to (our) land and response (or lack of) to how it is used and who makes the decisions.

Land as commons, a resources owned by no one and shared by everyone, was a key point of discussion and an ethical point from which issues of land use and land right were perceived by some of the speakers. Elinor Ostrom’s 8 principles for managing a commons were highlighted as guidance and inspiration-giving document. Looking back in history at how commons and land rights issues had been approached in different cultures was highlighted as another source of wisdom for the current movement (for example, the Highland Land League); other movements are also a source of knowledge (for example, the Food sovereignty movement). The feral commons of the Govan graving docks, now cleared and the the site of a new housing development, illustrates how land use issues are very much relevant to those of us living in cities, as well well as those living in rural areas, the possibilities of public use begin to diminish through the commercialisation of urban land.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming (Greenhorns; Farm Hack) focussed on agency, that of young farmers in the US working to build ‘infrastructure for holding land in common’ in spite of the barriers created by large scale agricultural models which make it very difficult for young people to re-enter agriculture as a way of (making a) living. She spoke of their ambition to open up access to land for local economies for young farmers and people without enough, or any, capital in an increasingly speculative system. She said to look up Terre de Liens, a group from France, who are forging the way and inspiring the global movement!

Artist Alec Finlay, guided us through a journey of Scottish landscapes and their Gaelic names demonstrating how landscape and culture, nature and people are interconnected but how we may be witnessing the weakening or disappearance of these connections. Here are some notes from his contribution to the evening excluding the beautiful-sounding names and the stunning landscapes projected on the wall: First there was the place, then the name. The name of what a place once was…Place names are social signs…A field of biotic relations, necessary relations. A name could aid habitat restoration as it is all that remain from a past habitat…a sound designating reality. A name is a place and it’s absence